Massively Multicomplainer: ‘NationStates’
There are times when you just don’t have time for a whole match in a MOBA, you want something more nebulous than Minesweeper, and something that is just far more interesting than work. Enter a game you play maybe once or twice a day for literally minutes, NationStates. I don’t mean in the “Burn your actions come back tomorrow” way, I mean in the “you have nothing to do until the game says you do” sense. How can such a game be interesting you ask? By being loaded with pure political satire in the best way.
NationStates has a long history; it was created in 2002 under the inspiration of a Max Barry novel called Jennifer Government in which all citizens have the last name of who they work for. This inspired the game in the sense that national politics are weird. In 2008 a NationStates 2 was created but it’s since died out with the far cheaper to operate first game still online with 136,000+ active nations. The lead regions have thousands of nations in them! Yet for its age and comedic content there are almost no memes tied to it, searches failed me. Many players, however, thought it would be funny to name their nation with the word “meme” in it.
The player creates an country with its own name, flag, political beliefs, and essentially identity. Your nation is put in a starter region, which is essentially the community of nations you interact with. You will also be barraged by a stream of region invitations that will vary from offensively bad to intriguing. There’s no real penalty for floating from region to region either, your nation is what grows in strength over time. Your nation page is full of faux statistics that are changed and altered over time, so many variables are at play, there’s really a lot of variety.
A new issue is brought up at minimum twice a day, legislation that you have final say over. These typically are based around a controversial issue and two to four wacky reasons to take two to four wacky approaches. These are what really changes how your nation is described and future issues. There were originally 30 issues, but accounts with enough citizens can submit their own. By now there have to be thousands of different issues, very few nations end up reading the same. Not many people agree with each other after all, and every issue is something you usually will have some kind of stand on. Over time these change how your nation is classified and how it’s people behave.
I decided to create the Matriarchy of Korezziastan, a psycho-feminist liberal paradise. In the few days it has existed I moved to a pretty decent region, banned cars while having the 52nd best automotive industry in the region, and enjoy fantastic civil rights in what is effectively a middle eastern warzone. There’s a lot that can be done by not giving spiritual funding a dime! One of the first issues was on drugs, made em all legal. I originally thought about using a Polish flag, but I ended up using an obscure African flag and crudely photo-shopped it; it still gives me a chuckle whenever I load up my page. I committed an act of political satire in making my account for this politically satirical game. You’ll find this game really embraces the ludicrousness of politics.
As your nation grows more political options become available. You can join the World Assembly in order to submit and vote on measures. Measure in the WA apply to all member nations and is a vast series of laws that is very entertaining to read. This may sound a bit like the United Nations; that would because up until 2008 it was called that. The real UN decided on April 1st to send a cease and desist to change the name. Which was in its own bizarre, but it was real. To think, the fake UN had achieved so much more like banning slavery and setting radical minimum wage doctrines!
That’s the “game”, creating a nation that you develop as a character. Regions typically have their own private forum board for players to roleplay, hold elections, and use for political scandals. There are no deep mechanics in NationStates. War is a very broad trolling invasion on the enemy regions communications networks, scaring nations out until only theirs remain. It’s a game about politics with players constructing a web of politics over it. Any extra time beyond picking issue answer is roleplay, you can journal about your country, post in roleplay boards, etc; but the actual gameplay mechanic is issues. Strangely enough the issues are not coded in an advanced enough fashion to edit out anything the WA, it’s more of a political minigame. Your country is politically graded on an complex “morality system” a bit like Dungeons and Dragons alignments, but between radical conservatism and liberalism.
NationStates draw is that it facilitates a roughly anonymous community, or one where you know who everybody is. You very well could have all of your friends form your own region and never interact that much with random people! It’s all about getting what you want out of the games system. What this game is not is an adventure game, there is no narrative, no points, no “RPG mechanics” besides the idea that as your account gets older more people live in it.
This is a game you check every now and then, settle business, and get back to work. Or it can be one you obsess over as a lighter alternative to other games. NationStates may not be the most advanced of games but it certainly reminds me of a political sort of Tamagotchi. It’s a game you can play any way, causally, intensively, to devoting years of your life fabricating a web of history in your fictional country.
It’s a game I think more people should play to develop a sense of humor about politics, as well as slight understanding of them.
